Saturday, August 25, 2012

Real Commercial Printing Costs

In looking at commercial printing costs, you should not just look at the monetary value you should also look at the effort of both parties and the time spent in creating the prints. One of the most important things to do to cut costs in printing is to find the best commercial printer who can give you a good price for your print and less of a headache when printing starts.

ColorsDo you really need multi – color printing (more than one color)? If you are picking just black for your prints, printing will relatively be cheaper compared to a print that has one specific color. The more colors you require apart from black the more it will cost. Since our monitors use RGB colors, the prints will most likely not match the actual design and should you require the colors to match your pick as exact as possible, your price just might go up. So to save you a few bucks, be fine with the colors that comes out the proof unless the colors are way to different from the one you chose.

Thicker paper and paper made of good quality will obviously add to the price. This is a very important choice as papers ability to absorb ink varies greatly plus papers of good quality survive longer than the thinner ones. You can however use the cheaper ones for simple handouts that people just might throw away eventually.

Print dimensionsThe bigger your prints are the bigger the costs, this would increase even more if you require a particular size that is not commonly done.

Print volumeHow much prints are you thinking of having produced? Commercial prints are often more than 500 copies or more. Ideally your printer should give you a good rate for the volume of your prints.

The more prints you require for printing the more savings you get. This will not only save you money, it will also save you time and effort to go back to your printers if you need the same prints again just because you did not print that much.

Pre-flight/submission/uploading CheckThe more thorough your review of your design you do before you give to the printers the more you save on monetary costs, efforts and time. Look at everything from all corners; check your fonts, colors, simple spellings and grammar, typographical errors, wrong pictures etc. The more you scrutinize everything the better for you and your pocket.

FinishingAdditional add-ons apart from the print on the paper like binding is another add-on to the bill. Some printers include this in the package to give you better rates.

Turnaround timeYour chosen printer should meet any deadline you require. While monetarily late prints will not cost you greatly (unless you have an event coming in a few days), it will how ever cost you the time. The time lost is the time that the prints should have been with the intended users.

Understanding the entire process of commercial printing will help you greatly in cutting down the costs. Talk to your chosen commercial printer and be friendly, nice customers tend to be given better packages or cheaper rates than arrogant ones.